Hongo’s publications include “Coral Road” (2011); “Volcano” (1995), winner of the Oregon Book Award for nonfiction; “The River of Heaven” (1988), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and “Yellow Light” (1982).

He also edited “Under Western Eyes: Personal Essays from Asian America” (1995) and “The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America” (1993).

His poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Antaeus, Field, Georgia Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Parnassus, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Hawaii Herald, and The New Yorker.

A distinguished professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at University of Oregon, Hongo was profiled in the PBS TV series “Moyers: The Power of the Word” and appears in “The Best American Poetry 2008.”

He has received such honors as the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship, and Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets.

A 1969 graduate of Gardena High School, Hongo received his B.A. from Pomona College and his MFA from UC Irvine. He also did graduate studies in Far Eastern languages and literatures at the University of Michigan and in critical theory at UCI.

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The Rafu Shimpo has been the nation's leading Japanese American newspaper since its original publication. We are proud to have served the Japanese American community from our Little Tokyo office in Downtown Los Angeles since 1903.